Spotify has long offered a free tier to those who just want to stream music without having to pay for the privilege. They do have to put up with several restrictions, including the fact that they don’t have access to on-demand features, and they also have to put up with advertisements. Some of the biggest music labels haven’t exactly been too thrilled about Spotify’s free tier and they have been in negotiations with the company to try and figure something out. The deadlock could soon end as Spotify may reportedly delay album releases for users on the free tier.
The Financial Times reports today that Spotify has agreed to “window” important album releases meaning that they would only be available for paying members at least for a limited time. This would obviously incentivize more people to sign up for the paid tier and would thus subsequently lead to the increase in revenue that the labels generate from streaming services.
The scribe does mention that while this proposal has been put on the table, nothing has been signed as yet. It does point out that talks have “picked up considerably” since Spotify showed its willingness to adopt this idea.
Spotify has been engaged in these talks with Universal, Warner, and Sony who own the bulk of the music in Spotify’s library. Why wouldn’t they, given that they are three of the largest labels in the world.
There has been no official announcement about this from either Spotify or any of the labels so we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.
Filed in . Read more about Spotify.